


disaster darlings

by keircatenation



Series: friendship and spite [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, Quincy worldbuilding, Shinigami worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-05-31 20:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15127538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keircatenation/pseuds/keircatenation
Summary: Kurosaki Masaki was fifteen when she saved her future husband's life; Shiba Isshin was 231 when he saved his future wife's life. They're both kind of really disasters, but at least they have each other to try and muddle things through.A bingo of prompts about Masaki and Isshin.





	1. 003. funeral

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: this is largely unedited.  
> My take on Masaki and Isshin is largely based on my headcanons about Isshin being a disaster in canon and also my desire to write loving and consensual but also complex relationships, so YMMV.
> 
> friendship & spite note: this AU is canon-divergent with non-canon worldbuilding. See series description for details.

Masaki sat in front of the Kurosaki family grave, eyes on the names on the sotoba behind the granite monument. The smell of burning meat, grains, and vegetables hung in the air as the offerings on the  _Fünfzackige Platte_  curled into ashes. Only a few days ago, she had done the same back in Karakura, in front of the Ishida family grave. So many dead in the space of a few months - the oldest Quincies falling dead on the same day, but some of the young adults in their prime lasting  _months_  in their comas. It was like something out of a story.

It  _was_  something out of a story.

The legends of Yhwach's revenge, in fact.

Masaki's hands curled into fists on her knees. The idea that  _that one_  was behind the deaths of all the Echt Quincies in the Living World (or, at least the one's that Masaki knew about) was -

It was unsurprising, but it made Masaki want to go out and find something to  _punch_. To hurt, like she was hurting.

No wonder Isshin always called her reckless.

Masaki sighed and bent over, bowing before her family's grave. She might not have talked with any of them since her marriage - since oba-san refused to give her blessing to Masaki and Isshin - but she still loved them, in a tangled, complicated way that was made of at least one part guilt for breaking with tradition. If she hadn't -

Well, if she hadn't done everything she'd done, she'd probably be dead along with them, because without getting tied to Isshin, she would have been as Echt as they were, and Yhwach would have torn her body apart the same as theirs.

A gentle breeze rustled the leaves around her, and her cheeks felt surprisingly cold. She reached up to touch them and found that they were wet. She was  _crying_. She rubbed at her cheeks roughly, trying to scrub away all evidence of the tears.

"Ugh," she said out loud, laying her hands flat against her burning cheeks once she'd rubbed away all the tears. Why did she even cry? Too many emotions to deal with otherwise, she supposed. She'd heard that any excess of emotion could make a person cry. That made sense, considering all the emotions she felt concerning her dead relatives.

A crunch of leaves under a foot on the path behind her, and Masaki gripped her Quincy cross, reaching out for the surrounding reiatsu instinctively.

"It's just me, my darling wife."

And so it was. Just Isshin. He must have left Ichigo and the twins with Masaki's cousin Ran, because they weren't in his arms or trailing after him. That was good. Masaki didn't think she could handle smiling at them right now.

But rolling her eyes at her husband?  _That_  was something Masaki could do.

"Don't tell me you left the kids tied to a tree," Masaki said. "Haven't I told you before that they can't be treated like pets?"

Isshin kneeled next to her, his large body radiating heat where it touched hers. Even his voice was warm with humor when he said, "Ah, but, my love, they're so small! How else am I supposed to treat them?"

Masaki chuckled, and was surprised when it turned into a sob as more tears ran down her cheeks. She swiped at them angrily. "I just - can't stop crying for some reason."

Isshin caught her hands and guided them away from her face. A hand on her chin made her look over at him, and the amount of concern in his eyes made more tears stream down her cheeks. Isshin's fingers were gentle and soothing as he brushed them away. "What do you always say? Your devotion will make your family members' flowers grow. Your tears can help water their memorial plants!"

Masaki huffed a laugh. "I don't think it was meant so literally." But Isshin's words helped, as they almost always did - how funny, it was like she  _loved_  him, the big lug - and the tangle of emotions in her chest eased a bit. Not a lot, but enough to let her lean against him, letting her head rest against his neck. Isshin combed his fingers through her hair, the repetitive motions soothing.

Eventually, Masaki said, "Kagami's twins were only seven years old."

Isshin hesitated, and then he said, "I know."

"I only ever saw photos of them."

"I know."

"They were  _seven years old_."

"I know."

"How dare  _that one_  do this. How  _dare_."

Isshin didn't reply to that, just kept combing his fingers through her hair. Masaki turned her head further into his neck, shifting herself onto his lap. As soon as she did, his other arm came up to embrace her, holding her close against him. She hugged him back, fisting her hands in the back of his shirt.

"First they abandon us, and now they - they -" Masaki couldn't even finish her sentence, anger closing up her throat. But it's not like Isshin didn't know what she was going to say; she'd said it enough over the past few months as the Echt Quincies around her dropped dead.

_First, Yhwach abandons us to the shinigami's extermination order, and now they kill us by stealing our powers from our bodies._

At least their souls shouldn't be damaged. The Rebellion's grapevine was in full bloom, and Masaki had already heard that Souken-oji-san and Ryuuken had been found in the Rukongai and had been safely brought to the Heimstätte on the outskirts of the outer-most districts. Souken-oji-san had been awed by the Quincy soul settlement, and had immediately started exploring. Ryuuken had shut himself up in his room and sulked, spiteful to the last.

At least Masaki wasn't the only one having problems accepting the new state of things.

"I want to send letters to my cousins," she said, the words a little muffled since she spoke them into Isshin's chest.

"Letters?" Isshin sounded surprised. "I think that's a great idea, to stay in touch once we go back to Karakura."

Masaki shook her head, and pushed herself upright, looking her husband straight in the eye. "I don't mean Ran, Ume, and Kiku... Although I  _do_  want to keep in touch with them." She paused. "I mean my  _dead_  cousins. Kagami. Matsumi. Aoi. Even oba-san, although I have no idea if she would accept it."

Isshin frowned. "Do you mean - is this another tradition, like the  _Fünfzackige Platte_? Burning letters, like we leave messages in streams?"

Masaki shook her head again. "No. I mean, I am going to write letters, and I am going to give them to Kisuke-san, and he is going to pass them on to my family with the next shipment of supplies that comes for the Rebellion."

"I don't - is that - I, hm." Isshin seemed like he couldn't decide whether this should be  _allowed,_  contact between the living and the dead in such a way. It certainly wasn't  _traditional,_ but Masaki didn't have the stomach for traditions right now. Besides, Quincy souls always remembered their lives in the Living World, unlike regular human souls. There was no reason  _not_ to allow this, except stupid fucking traditions.

"It's technically against the law, to allow direct contact between the living and the dead," Isshin said finally.

Masaki raised her eyebrows. "And you think plotting to overthrow the government  _isn't_?"

Isshin blushed, and rubbed the back of his head. "I didn't realize you knew that much about what we're planning..."

"You  _really_ think I don't pay attention to what gets said around me?" Masaki asked, a little disbelieving. "My darling husband, not only have I been married to you for over sixyears now, I've also been working with Kisuke-san and Tessai-san for much longer than that. I met Nel-san and Sousuke-san just after I met you. Of course I know what you're planning to do!"

"Ahaha..." Isshin blushed harder, and ducked his head. "I didn't - didn't really think you realized, since you never mentioned it."

Masaki rolled her eyes. "Of course I didn't. No one ever asked me for help, so I assumed you didn't want it. Besides, it's not like I haven't had enough to do in the Living World, without worrying about fighting battles in Soul Society."

Isshin raised his head a bit. "...what changed?"

"Yhwach killed off my closest family," Masaki replied, voice hard. "And I think the Rebellion can help the living Quincies more than it has, and the living Quincies can  _also_  help the Rebellion more than they have."

Isshin's eyebrows raised. "You mean..."

Masaki nodded, hard and tight. "Yes. But first, I need to send a few letters."


	2. 020. cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Masaki wakes up when she wasn't expecting to, and Isshin gets yelled at for saving her life.

The first time Masaki saw Shiba Isshin cry, it was the morning after she expected to die.

She woke up in an unfamiliar room, on a traditional futon laid out on tatami mats, and for a moment she considered the idea that she'd somehow died and was now in Soul Society. But no... If that Hollow was going to kill her, it would have been back when it bit her, right? And the pain she'd felt before she blacked out and wound up here - it was like her soul was tearing itself apart.

She still didn't feel quite right, like there was a muffled echo in her head.

Once she decided that she was probably still alive, Masaki got up and padded her way to the door, taking the blanket with her to clutch around her shoulders. (Someone removed her uniform top, leaving her in only the tank top she wore under it and her uniform skirt, and it was kind of chilly in there.) Walking around was harder than she expected, and she had to stop and rest her forehead against the doorjamb for a second before she had the energy to slide it open.

The door opened onto a traditional hallway with wooden flooring and more screens lining the walls. Masaki looked up and down the hallway before stepping out, but still nothing looked familiar. She assumed she was safe, since Ryuuken had been with her when she blacked out, and there was the whole matter of waking up relatively well-rested and healthy, but the fact that she didn't know where she was frustrated her.

She'd gotten tired of being brought places against her will when she was shipped to Karakura in the first place.

Well, nothing for it. Masaki picked a direction and started shuffling down the hallway. It was really quiet here, but at least there were ambient sounds: a few fans were running somewhere, and someone was whistling down the hall, and -

Uh. Well. Someone was crying behind the screen next to her.

Masaki paused.

The person didn't seem like they were trying to hide the fact that they were crying - she could hear huge, gasping sobs, and low wails, and she was honestly surprised that she hadn't heard it before now. Unless she was in a Quincy residence, or someplace similar, where seals peppered the walls for silence and only let the "honored ones" hear.

(She'd hoped she'd get to leave all those seals behind when she left the Kurosaki residence in Tokyo, but it turned out that the Ishida manor had just as many sprinkled around, if not more.)

So whoever it was - probably a man, considering how low the voice was? - wasn't being really quiet, but at the same time, there had to be a reason for going into a room and shutting the door to cry instead of doing it out where anyone could see. Masaki could sympathize with that; the only times she cried around Ishida-oba-san were when she was trying to make a point. Otherwise, she took her emotions elsewhere, not trusting the family she was supposed to marry into with what she really felt.

However, Masaki was in a bit of a strange mood - maybe from waking up when she expected to be torn apart into nothing - and she resented not knowing who it was crying. Wasn't that what got her into trouble throughout her life? Not knowing enough to handle situations differently?

(Ishida-oba-san would yell at her and lock her in her room. "If you don't know how to handle a situation, then maybe you shouldn't be in it! Echt Quincy women are for continuing the family line, not for fighting!  _No_  Echt should have to fight until all the Gemischt Quincies are dead!")

And so, as quietly as she could, Masaki edged open the sliding screen door in order to peek into the room.

As first, she didn't see anything, and then she realized that the lump of blankets on the futon in the corner was actually a person under a blanket, curled in on themself, shaking with the force of their sobs. Masaki could see short black hair on the head peeking out of the blankets, and the black kimono they were wearing. Masaki thought about turning away, her curiosity satisfied, until she saw the haori draped over a table under the window. It was white, and had a "ten" in a diamond on the back over a daffodil.

That was what that shinigami was wearing, right? When Masaki saved his ass from that Hollow. (And got bitten.)

She couldn't think of any reason for a shinigami to be curled up under a blanket crying, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to involve herself in that kind of thing - Souken-oji-san might not mind the shinigami, but Ishida-oba-san hated them and was very vocal about it - but she also felt a bit of a connection to the guy. After all, she'd saved his life. Afterlife. Whatever.

Masaki decided to stop thinking about it, and pushed the door open all the way to shuffle inside.

The shinigami sat up and spun around on his knees at the sound of the door, right hand going to his left hip like he was reaching for a weapon. Weird, since he didn't have his freakin' meat cleaver with him. His eyes were wide and his mouth tense, like he'd had no idea that she was there until she made noise.

His eyes were also red, and his cheeks were wet with tears.

Masaki slid the door closed behind her and sat down on the floor in front of him, hugging her blanket tighter. "What, no greeting for the girl who saved your life, shinigami-san?"

The shinigami blinked at her, like the question didn't even compute. Then he laughed and shook his head. "A greeting for the brave warrior who saved my life? Something like 'Thank you for the other day, I am forever in your debt'?"

"Yeah, seems like a good start," Masaki replied. "Some bowing wouldn't hurt, either."

The shinigami laughed again, scrubbing his palms over his cheeks as he settled back to sit cross-legged on the futon.

He really was pretty good looking, Masaki thought as she watched him. Broad shoulders, a strong, square jaw, with some really nice sideburns as well. And with that voice, he'd be the kind of celebrity all the girls at school would giggle over between (and during) classes. Masaki included. How old was he? She'd heard that dead people aged different from living people with bodies, but she'd think he was only a few years older than she was.

"Well, I hate to inform you, but I've settled my debt with you," the shinigami said, and his smile seemed a bit off.

Masaki pretended she didn't see. "Oh really? Wooow, you sure act quick, settling a  _life debt_. Why, I think you're the kinda man my auntie warns me against."

That was the right thing to say, because the shinigami's smile widened into a grin that seemed more genuine. "Well, from what I've heard about your aunt, I'm sure I  _am_ the kind of man she warns you about."

Masaki smirked. "You dastardly shinigami. Getting into trouble and making Quincy teenagers get hurt while saving you. Who knows if you were even in trouble in the first place, right?"

"Oh no, believe me, I  _greatly_ appreciate your assistance against that Hollow, Ishida-san," the shinigami said. "If you hadn't -"

"Kurosaki," Masaki interrupted.

"What?"

"I'm a Kurosaki, not an Ishida." She rubbed at the back of her neck. "Kurosaki Masaki. Just Masaki, I guess. Since I saved your life, and all."

"Alright, Just-Masaki-san," the shinigami said. "I'm Shiba Isshin. Or just Isshin, since  _I_ saved  _your_ life, and all."

Masaki sat up straight, loosening her hold on the blanket around her shoulders. "Wait, what?"

Isshin blinked. "No one told you?"

"Well, you're the first person I've seen since I woke up today." Masaki rolled her eyes. "The last thing I remember was blacking out at home. How did  _you_ save my life?"

"Ah... I'm not sure I'm the best person to explain it," Isshin said, glancing to the side.

_Shifty fucking eyes._

"Uh, nope," Masaki said flatly. "If you were really the one to save my life, then you're definitely the best person to explain it. And besides" - she smiled  _oh so sweetly_ \- "aren't you the first one I've talked to this morning? It must be fate!"

It seemed Isshin had some experience with sickeningly sweet smiles, because he just sighed and dragged a blanket up to clutch around his shoulders. Masaki didn't know if it was a conscious effort to mirror her, or if he just did it because it was cold for some reason.

"I guess the best place to start is where we are," Isshin began, sounding a little tired. "We're at the Urahara Shouten. It's run by Urahara Kisuke and -"

"And Tsukabishi Tessai," Masaki finished.

"Uh?"

Masaki shrugged. "Ishida-oba-san hates shinigami, but if you're going to get spiritual things in Karakura, the shouten's where you go. I started coming here last year. I've never meet Urahara-san, but I've seen Tsukabishi-san a few times now."

"Ah." Isshin blinked again, and then shook his head. "Anyways, your, ah, cousin? Ishida Ryuuken-san?"

"More like my brother, and really like my future husband," Masaki said. "If Ishida-oba-san gets her way."

"Oh." That derailed Isshin again for a moment, but he seemed to decide not to question it for now.

"So Ryuuken was the one that brought me here?" Masaki prompted.

"Yes, last night. I was here at the shouten, recovering from my fight with the Hollow, when you were brought in." Isshin paused, and clenched one hand in the blanket around his shoulders, looking away. "You... weren't doing very well. There was a hole in your chest, and it was spreading, and ah..."

Masaki nodded. She had blacked out from the pain before the hole in her chest was larger than a yen coin, but even the sight of that had been...

Well, there was a reason Masaki hadn't really thought she was going to wake up again.

"Kisuke-san has some, uh, experience? With Hollowfication and with souls in general," Isshin continued. "So he had an idea of how to stop your soul suicide. He just... needed some, ah..."

That was ominous. Exactly  _what_ did this Urahara Kisuke take from Isshin to save her life?

(She was pretty sure it was the reason Isshin was crying.)

"What did he take from you?" Masaki asked, and then winced. Her voice was harder than she meant it, the anger at this Urahara creeping in.

Isshin shrugged. "Nothing I didn't voluntarily give."

Masaki gave him the most unimpressed look she could muster. "Is that  _really_ how you're going to play this, Just-Isshin-san?"

Isshin laughed softly, and turned to look back at Masaki. "Shinigami and Quincy are opposites. We draw our strength from opposing powers, and exist mostly in separate worlds." He paused. "While Hollow energy destroys Quincy souls, it doesn't destroy shinigami energy. So, in order to stop the soul suicide, Kisuke-san, ah, trapped and insulated the Hollow's energy away from your own."

"...Insulated?" Masaki repeated. "With  _what_ , exactly?"

"Ah, with my... With my energy," Isshin said.

Masaki blinked once.

Twice.

Three times.

"So what, you're not a shinigami anymore?" Masaki asked, and her voice only shook a bit. Surprising, considering the buzzing of angry emotion at the back of her head, ready to take over. "What does that  _mean_?" Her voice cracked on the last word.

Isshin hunched over. "We're bound together. Until you die, or until we get rid of the Hollow energy another way. I'm sorry, this really isn't to trap you, it was just the fastest way to -"

"Shut up!" Masaki yelled, jumping up, the blanket falling around her feet. She kicked it out of the way as she began pacing across the room, hands clenched in her hair. After a few quick steps, she turned back to that  _stupid shinigami_ , and demanded, "Who the hell said you had to give up your powers for me? Did this Urahara Kisuke make you do it? I'll fucking kill him, I'm a Quincy, I can tear his soul apart!"

Isshin rose up on his knees, eyes wide with panic. "No, no, no, Masaki-san, it's alright!"

"Alright?  _Alright?_ Fucking shit is it alright!" Masaki yelled. She tried to dodge his reaching hands, but he was quicker than she expected, and he grabbed onto first one wrist and then the other. "Let go of me! I'm gonna find that asshole and  _make him put things back to rights!"_

"Hey, language!" Isshin scowled. "What, and let you be  _destroyed_? Nope! Not happening!"

"And instead, you'd have  _me_  live with the guilt of knowing that I'm alive only because  _your_  soul's been torn apart?" Masaki snarled in his face. " _Not happening!_ "

Isshin blinked. "Wait, what?"

The sudden change in tone made Masaki stop struggling for a moment. "What do you mean, what? You sacrificed part of your soul to keep me alive, didn't you?"

"Uh, no. Just my shinigami powers," Isshin replied slowly. "It's just... It's like I'm a human now, that's all."

Masaki blinked. A shinigami's powers weren't a part of their soul? "Human? And your soul's  _really_ not damaged?"

Isshin shrugged kind of awkwardly, still holding her wrists. "Well... My zanpakuto's cut off from me, but it's more like he's been blocked off, you know? Not cut away, or gone forever. I know he's there, he's just... Behind a wall."

Like the muffling wall in the back of Masaki's mind? She sagged a bit, anger draining out of her. "Clearly, I _don't_ know. I don't even know what a zanpakutou is."

"Oh! He's my sword," Isshin explained, grinning a bit. "Engetsu. He's amazing, all fire and stuff."

"And stuff?" Masaki raised an eyebrow. "So, the big meat cleaver you were swinging around the other day?"

Isshin scowled. "Hey! Engetsu's  _not_ a meat cleaver! You take that back!"

"Well, considering how big, ah,  _he_ is compared to Quincy bows, one might think someone's compensating for something." Masaki waggled her eyebrows, to make sure Isshin understood what she meant.

Isshin's face turned red, and he dropped her wrists like they were burning red, backing up a few feet. "Ah, uh, it's not, uh, like that. And what do you know?"

Masaki tilted her head to the side, and she smirked, letting her eyes trail up Isshin's body. "Oh, I don't know, maybe a few things."

Isshin just stared at her for a moment, and then buried his face in his hands. "Stop talking about this! You're, like, a child!"

"A  _child_?" Masaki asked with a laugh. "I'm sixteen!"

"Oh god,  _sixteen_?" Isshin asked, eyes wide with horror as he peeked over his fingers. "You're a  _baby_."

Masaki scowled. "Excuse you. How old are you, then?"

"Two-hundred-thirty-one."

A moment of silence, and then Masaki said, "Fuck, you're old. No wonder you needed help fighting, you're practically  _ancient._ "

"Excuse you!"

* * *

An hour later, when Tsukabishi came to check on Isshin they were still fighting, but at least Isshin wasn't crying anymore.

That counted for something, in Masaki's books.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figure that Isshin would probably be a bit heartbroken over the choice between saving someone he respects and staying with his family and division, and he'd be a bit of a wreck in the wake of that. Thankfully, Masaki is who Ichigo inherited all the "little shit" genes from.


	3. 010. secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Ichigo almost dies, Isshin realizes it's time to tell the truth about some things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ficbit actually takes place around the beginning of the _actual_ first plotty fic in this AU, but I have to write that first in order to post it XD

Isshin stared down at his unconscious son - his bright, brave son who never backed down from a challenge when it meant protecting someone else - and wondered where he'd gone wrong.

It was only thanks to Nel-san's speed and Kisuke-san's familiarity with the Hollowfication process that Ichigo was merely unconscious now, instead of dead or, worse, taken over by the Hollow that Masaki had accidentally passed down to him at birth. In the fight with Barragan's adjuchas, Ichigo's soul chain had been broken, Nel-san said; the chain had started disintegrating at a rapid pace the moment it had.

Most souls get months to linger and make peace with their deaths before the energy in the Living World started to eat away at them.

Ichigo got a few seconds, if that.

Was is the way the chain had broken? Did the adjuchas have some kind of poison that accelerated Hollowfication?

Or was it because of Kurotsuchi's White, the Hollow that Masaki saved him from all those years ago? Who she had to carry around with her for years, as his shinigami powers insulated her Quincy soul from the corrosive Hollow energy?

An insidious voice at the back of his mind whispered that Isshin could have stopped this, if he'd been stronger, if he'd been faster, if he'd never needed Masaki to save him so she'd never have gotten bitten, so he'd never have had to give up his powers to save her life...

If, if, if.

(While he was at it, why not blame himself for his nephew's death as well? After all, he wasn't there to save him.)

Masaki would tell him that he's being stupid, but Masaki wasn't here. She'd gone home to make sure the twins are okay, and have supper, and know what's happened, and then maybe she'll come back when they're in bed. She was always the useful one, the one to do things, even when something terrible had happened.

Isshin just fell apart.

He always did. It had taken him weeks to leave the guest room in the shouten after he'd sacrificed his life in Soul Society to keep Masaki alive, and that was with logic to tell him that he could pass messages through Kisuke-san to his family, and get messages and gifts back in return. He was cut off from them, but not forever.

He still cried every night, and took an hour to work up the motivation to get out of bed in the morning.

When Kaien died...

Well, if it hadn't been for Masaki, he's not sure he would have survived it. She was the one that made him food, and made him eat the food, and drag him out at lunchtime for walks along the river. She'd been the one to ask Kisuke-san about funerary practices in Soul Society, and who carved Kaien's name into a large, smooth stone, and brought Isshin up to the very edge of the river to let him drop it in, and then waited with him for two hours until he could tear himself away from the weight of his grief.

If Ichigo had died -

Isshin's mind shied away from the thought. He wasn't as strong as he thought he was when he was younger - being in the Living World for almost three decades now without his shinigami powers has taught him that - and he didn't know if he would survive the death of any member of his close family.

Ichigo. Yuzu. Karin.

Or, Soul King forbid,  _Masaki_.

Isshin reached out and grabbed Ichigo's hand, to remind himself that his son was alive, that his family was fine, that it was alright, and he stayed that way until Masaki returned several hours later.

* * *

"You know, you'd make a great Batman."

The voice was Masaki's, but the words themselves made next to no sense.

Isshin blinked, and realized that he hadn't in a while. He released Ichigo's hand, and rolled his shoulders out from their hunch before turning to the door. "Batman? What's that, my darling wife?"

Masaki looked exhausted. Her eyelids drooped, and her bun was messy, with strands falling out of it all over the place. Isshin thought it was a pair of cheap wooden chopsticks holding the thing together, but he wasn't sure.

Even so, she still managed to smile at him. "Batman, my darling husband. You know, the American comic character?"

Isshin frowned. "Is he like a werewolf, part bat and part man?"

Masaki laughed softly, and stepped away from the door to collapse in a pile next to Isshin. She leaned her head against his shoulder, and he immediately put an arm around her shoulders to hold her up. She said, "Rich man who dresses like a bat. He broods on top of skyscrapers for hours, apparently. Like you, except without the aesthetically pleasing night sky behind you."

"Brooding?" Isshin asked, a little offended.

"Yes, my darling. Like you were when I walked in here. You were sitting here, motionless, and I bet you were thinking stupid things about how you should have been able to save our son," Masaki replied. Her arm hugged Isshin's waist, and her index finger started drawing slow circles on his side.

Isshin's reishi body was ticklish there, but his gigai wasn't. Apparently, the Visoreds' gigais weren't ticklish either. Maybe Kisuke-san didn't like the idea of even tiny weaknesses. Just like how Isshin's gigai let him sit without moving for long amounts of time.

...It was probably easier to  _brood_ if your body didn't make you move and interrupt yourself.

When Isshin didn't reply, Masaki huffed a sigh. "So, have you at least given a thought to how you're going to explain this to Ichigo?"

Isshin glanced down at the top of his wife's head, eyebrows raising in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"I mean the shinigami thing."

Ah.

That.

Isshin loved his wife's blunt approach, and how she cut through problems in an incredibly short amount of time, but he enjoyed it a lot more when it was pointed at someone else.

"...Do you really think we need to tell him?"

Masaki drew away and glared at him. "Isshin, my love. Of  _course_ we have to tell him. I backed off after the Auswahlen, because Quincy culture is enough for children to learn without adding in shinigami complications, but your children need to know where they come from! And Ichigo especially needs to know now,  _because he almost died today_."

Isshin remained silence, and looked back at his son's face. Ichigo was so emotional when he was awake, so seeing his face smooth and blank in sleep seemed unnatural. Even though Isshin was the one to wake his son up most weekdays - Ichigo could sleep through an explosion, let alone his alarm clock - he didn't often see his son at rest. After all, once Isshin dumped his son out of bed, Ichigo was more likely to scowl at him than smile.

"I still don't understand why you didn't want to tell the children about your family right off the bat," Masaki continued, still annoyed. "I'd have thought that you would tell them all about your mother, and sister, and cousins, and nephews and nieces until they'd beg you to stop. Why are you so reluctant?"

There wasn't an answer. At least, not an easy one, since Isshin didn't completely know himself. He had just... stopped sending messages to his family in Soul Society, after Kaien's death. Sometimes messages were sent to him through Kisuke-san, usually from his mother or from Kuukaku-chan since they were the most familiar with the inner workings of the Rebellion, but Isshin never sent anything back anymore. His life in the Living World felt too... fragile to expose to other shinigami.

Which, of course, was stupid, and Isshin didn't even need Masaki to tell him that. With Masaki working at the shouten, the kids were familiar with Kisuke-san and Tessai-san, and through them the other Visoreds. Shinji-san and Gin-san even stopped by the Kurosaki family house for dinner once in a while, when they were actually in Karakura and not gallivanting off across the world on Secret Rebellion Business. His family members were certainly  _exposed_ to shinigami.

At the same time...

Isshin wanted his children to grow up safe. To live far away from Hollows and Central 46's stupid politics and that Soul-King-bedamned Kurotsuchi Mayuri, and keeping his past and family secret from them was...

Well, it was certainly a way to try to do that.

"I suppose," Isshin began eventually, "that I thought that if they didn't know about it, it couldn't hurt them."

Masaki's silence was enough to tell him exactly what she thought of that.

Isshin sighed. "Yes, yes, you don't have to tell me how stupid I am. It clearly didn't work, and isn't going to work from now on, so just... Don't worry. I'll tell them all of it."

Masaki hummed, and snuggled closer to his chest. After a moment of silence, she said, "It isn't easy, to explain things that are painful."

That was his wife, his Masaki. Blunt and unrelenting in the onslaught, and then kind and sympathetic once she'd gotten what she wanted. Isshin smiled into her hair, closing his eyes and enjoying the time to hold her close. "It's probably worse to never talk about them," Isshin said finally. "Like pretending that I was never a shinigami, and a captain of the Tenth Division, and that would be... to make myself lesser."

Masaki nodded against his chest, but didn't say anything more.

Isshin sighed. "I've left this too long, haven't I. This is the Auswahlen all over again." Just like then, there was no way to explain things without introducing the kids to secrets held away from them for too long. "I suppose at least no one died this time."

"Fucking close enough," Masaki muttered into his chest.

"Language," Isshin said, more out of habit than anything else.

"Das Leben, Isshin, he's not even awake!" Masaki hissed, wriggling against him to get leverage, probably to hit him. Isshin tightened his arms around her, wrangling her with all the experience of fifteen years of marriage and another fifteen of friendship before that.

They wound up wrestling for the upper hand on the floor beside Ichigo's futon, grinning at each other and trying to be  _oh so quiet_  so they wouldn't wake their son. Isshin had more body mass, so you'd think he'd win these wrestling matches, but Masaki was used to fighting people bigger than her, and she also  _played dirty_. Such as whispering dirty words in Isshin's ear  _with their son right next to them, how could she?!_ And so they ended up with Isshin flat on the floor, holding onto Masaki's wrists as she straddled his waist, giggling helplessly.

Of course, that was when Ichigo woke up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nnnnnot completely happy with this one, but *shrug emoji*
> 
> I've always really wondered why Isshin kept his past a secret from his children, but I figure that maybe he thougt ignorance would keep them safe somehow? Especially with how Central 46 went after the Quincies, who would be the largest body of spiritually aware humans Isshin must have known about.  
> Das Leben = "the life", basically my AU!Quincy version of "oh my god!" All the Living World Quincies are Spiteful about Yhwach abandoning them, so they've changed all their spiritual language to cut them out of it. XD


End file.
